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Friday, February 1, 2013

A Conversation with "Medicus" series author Ruth Downie

I have enjoyed Ruth Downie's "Medicus" series since I read her very first novel in the series "Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire" ("Medicus and the Disappearing Dancing Girls" for you UK readers). I've followed her hero, Gaius Petreius Ruso, from Roman Britain to Gaul and back again, reviewing his latest adventure, "Semper Fidelis" just a few weeks ago. Whenever I read a book with a Roman setting and a captivating protagonist, a number of questions about the author's interest in ancient Rome, some of her challenges in character development and research sources invariably arise. This time, the author has generously offered to answer some of my questions and has allowed me to share her responses with you.

Ruth Downie, author of the "Medicus"
series of novels set in Roman Britain.
Image courtesy of Amazon.

Mary: What aspect of Roman civilization do you find
most interesting?

Ruth: What fascinates me is the contrast between the way Roman culture seems very
familiar to us and the ways in which their thinking was so completely different.
We can identify with the use of technology, the political bickering, the
complex administration, the vast gap between rich and poor – and yet how could
they accept slaughter as entertainment? And while there was some tinkering with
the law to make the lives of slaves more bearable, the right of one person to
treat another as ‘property’ was the basis of the economy and never seriously
questioned.

Mary: Why did you choose the early 2nd century
CE as the setting for the "Medicus" series?

Ruth: It
was a trip to Hadrian’s Wall that sparked my interest in Roman Britain, so it
seemed natural to write about the time when it was built. The first novel really
didn’t work, but Ruso and Tilla evolved from two minor characters in the
backstory. That’s why they ended up meeting some years before the wall appeared.
In fact it’s worked out quite nicely, because in SEMPER FIDELIS they can slot into
history and meet Hadrian on his only recorded tour of Britannia.

Mary: As a female author what aspect of your
male protagonist do you find most challenging to capture?

Ruth: I’ve
been racking my brains to remember the instance where I discussed a plot point
with my husband, who said, “No, a man wouldn’t do that. A man would…” but I’m
afraid neither of us can remember what it was!

Somebody
once observed that when a man looks in the mirror he sees a person, whereas
when a woman looks in a mirror she sees a woman. I don’t know how true that is
now but it was certainly true for the male-dominated ancient world, and I do try
to bear it in mind.

Mary: Did you use an historical Roman as a
model for Ruso or a modern acquaintance? Who?

Ruth: The
character of Ruso is imaginary but his meeting with Tilla was inspired by a
real-life dilemma faced by two medic friends. They were stuck in traffic and
realised there had been an accident on the motorway ahead of them. They had to
decide whether to stay where they were and leave it to the ambulance, or
abandon the car, run to the scene and try to help. The trouble was, they were
only students, they knew very little emergency medicine and they had no equipment
or backup (I left that part out of the novel). Fortunately in real life the
ambulance got there first. I didn’t give Ruso that option.

Mary: Do you share particular character traits
with Tilla? If so, which ones?

Ruth: Her
cooking is possibly slightly worse than mine. Well, somebody’s has to be. Apart
from that, she fulfils all my fantasies of one day becoming confident,
assertive and decisive.

Mary: Now that Ruso and Tilla are married, how
will you maintain the sexual tension between them?

Ruth: Whilst
they are indeed man and wife, that’s not irrevocable - divorce was readily
available in both their cultures. I think the cultural differences between them
will continue to give rise to tensions and while Tilla is married to Ruso, he
owes his first allegiance to the Emperor and the Legion. So in a sense she
always has to compete for his attention, while he’s torn between his loyalty to
the Army and his loyalty to his wife – and of course his duty to his patients.

Mary: In "Semper Fidelis", Ruso is
temporarily demoted from an officer to a ranker. This was surprising to me
since officers were typically of a higher social class and Roman society
usually strictly observed social hierarchy in spite of legal infractions. Did
you find an historical precedent for this type of disciplinary action during
the imperial period? If so, could you describe the example you found?

Ruth: That’s
an interesting point: certainly people of patrician status seem to have been regularly
banished rather than suffer a more plebeian punishment. I haven’t found a
specific example of demotion of legionary officers, but much of our evidence
for military careers comes from tombstones, where failure is unlikely to be
recorded. However commanders were able to use their discretion and one of the
punishments available to them was demotion.

Secondly,
although officers were generally of a higher social class than the men, doctors
were an anomaly. Like many skilled trades, medicine was seen to be the province
of slaves and Greeks, and its practitioners were rarely held in high esteem in
civilian society. The elder Pliny had some very scathing things to say about them,
and Ruso’s father was appalled when Ruso was desperate to go and learn medicine
from his Uncle Theo rather than be a gentleman farmer. So although Ruso is in a
position of authority because he has valuable skills, his social rank isn’t
typical of officers – he would have more in common with centurions who had
worked their way up through the ranks.

Another
point here is that our sparse evidence on military doctors suggests that senior
medics may have been appointed on short-term commissions as officers rather
than having to serve the 25 years demanded of men in the ranks. There’s some
dispute about this but the joy of being a novelist rather than an academic is
that you can choose whichever interpretation works best for your story. So I’ve
gone with the one that enables me to get Ruso and Valens very conveniently in
and out of the Legion.

Mary: You mentioned on your blog that you have
participated in archaeological site excavations. What has been the most
interesting site you have helped to excavate and why?

Ruth: Most
of my time in the trenches has been spent on a long-term dig of a Roman villa in
a scenic location in Northamptonshire – you can see the photos and read more
about it at www.whitehallvilla.co.uk.
Over the years, what had once been a stony field on a sheep farm was revealed
as a large Romano-British villa site. We know from excavated bones that even
then, the farm was breeding some very fine sheep.

My
favourite day was when we finally dug below what appeared to a mass of rubble
from a nearby bath-house and realised the tiles we were beginning to find were
the tops of buried stacks. We had found the first heated room of a second,
completely unexpected bath complex. Geophysics is a marvellous science but you
never really know what you’re going to find until you start scraping away the
mud with a trowel.

Mary: What is one of the most surprising facts
about the Romans or early Britons you have discovered in your research?

Ruth: Well,
one of the medical textbooks regularly used in the Roman empire offers a cure
for earache that involves popping in a boiled cockroach. I can’t say I’ve tried
this. Nor have I yet tried to get rid of toothache by shattering the offending
tooth with the sting of a stingray. If anyone does, I disclaim all
responsibility.

Mary: Who is your favorite author and why?

Ruth: I
fear I’m rather fickle – it tends to vary depending on who I’ve just been
reading. But Martin Cruz Smith is a firm favourite. His Russian detective,
Arkady Renko, is just so cool.

Mary: What Roman (besides Ruso) do you most
admire and why?

Ruth: Hadrian.
After a wild period in his youth he turned out be an intelligent, ambitious and
hugely hardworking man. He was never liked by the Senate – the rumours of a
faked succession and the murders of several opponents can’t have helped – but
he was respected by his troops and made the effort to travel and see and
improve the Empire he governed. Instead of embarking on crazy expeditions into
territories Rome couldn’t hold, he drew back and tried to bring peace by consolidating
what they already had.

In the end he became bitter and unpopular, but
that was the fate of most Emperors anyway. And I’m mightily grateful to him and
his wife for saying insulting things about each other – marital tension is
always a wonderful gift to a storyteller.

About The Editor

I am passionate about technology, education and history, particularly ancient history. I am constantly exploring ways to use technology to enhance the learning environment and am particularly ecstatic when I can develop a technology to advance the study of ancient history.Follow me on Twitter! Comments or Questions: mharrsch@uoregon.edu

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